There are questions which props up in our mind that we often neglect for good reasons. Good of avoiding confusing ourselves. Good of not putting ourselves in uncomfortable zones. Good of not getting scared of questioning the unquestioned concepts/ideas. These questions which, when pursued, can give deep insights, better understanding & knowledge enrichment, but they go unattended in realms of our human memory.
Three of such questions of mine, are relevant to ponder here, along with my views on a book. I once, asked a question to my father. He is strong believer in karma & other Indian values/thoughts. He always believes in things happen in our lives according to the results of our previous birth good/bad actions. I asked him, if our present lives already decided by our previous lives’ actions, then what is the purpose we are here for. Is it just to reap the results of past actions and do nothing. In short, I mean to ask him, is it one’s life predetermined? If so, why? His answers were philosophical and unconvincing to me.
The second question, which struck me long ago, when I was reading a Telugu book written by my father’s teacher. In that book (I don’t remember the name and also I didn’t complete reading it), the author poses a question. How events like Big bang, that happened (supposed to have happened) millions of years ago, can be predicted to have happened by the scientists in this period. No body knows, fully about our universe, its origin, its growth or its end. Our scientists doing all prediction jobs with reasonable assumptions, but do we know, for sure, it really happened the way we are told to have happened? It struck me like a nail. Very valid question. But thanks to our education system, the question just disappeared in turbulence of thoughts.
Third question, that came up, is why we are following science & its methodologies to inquire nature and its working. Why there is no other alternative methodologies. Science is a western thought. All over the world, we have adapted it. Why there is no other alternative? Why there is no alternative to science to inquire nature?
These three questions, suddenly I remembered, while I was reading a book authored by David A. Shiang. I never heard of him, so I googled his name. I could find two relevant Google search results for David A. Shiang, who is the author of the book, whose title is a famous quote by Albert Einstein, “God Does Not Play Dice “. They are, book publisher’s website and an incomplete review (or just a mention?) in Business Line . Given the abstractness of the topic and for many other reasons, it does not surprise me about this book’s low popularity. What surprises me, given the originality of author’s ideas/thinking & his unique take on traditional scientific methodologies, this book is not published by international publisher, rather picked up by an Indian publisher.
The first two questions I mentioned above, are discussed in this book quite extensively. Not in the exact form, but close to it. The author has written about many abstract topics. It forced me to re-read the lines to comprehend his points. Some of them still went undigested. From his writing and the number of people he quoted in various books, gives me an impression of his deep knowledge on his subject.
Author tries his hand on many scientific basics and attacks them. He attacks the concept of randomness and how we are told convincingly, many of advance topics like quantum mechanics, evolution of species etc., displays nature’s signature of randomness. He attacks the results we derived on many scientific ideas are built on unverified assumptions and how they went unquestioned. He says, that assumptions, made by scientific community which are not verified experimentally. And he argues nature works not randomly, but a well defined (pre-defined) manner. The explanation he has given for the concept of “Free Will” is simply stupendous.
The title of the book, might indicate the reader that the book is something to do with God, spiritualism etc.,. The author clarifies the God, he is dealing with, in this book is not the one who intervenes our daily lives by listening to our prayers but the God, what Einstein was referring to, the Nature, Cosmos, Universe etc.,.
Author gave a good insights about the “what if” situations. He argues, the way things have happened, is the only way it could have happen. Though we can speculate many other ways it could have happen, but it is not the case. Understanding this idea, will stop the worrying over our past events, he observes.
“We think we could have done something we did not do, and we think we could have not done something that we did do.”
“By one estimate, more than 30 per cent of the time we spend worrying concerns things that have happened and can’t be changed. A simple alteration in the way we think can lead to the virtual elimination of this entire type of worrying.
The way he disassembles, the well established ideas and injects his thoughts amazes me. Though, I can comprehend fully only on few of his explanations, still it makes enormous sense. I plan to re-read this book, to get the entire thing he explodes in the book. This books reminds me of another book, which I read long back and forgot most of the contents – “The web of life” by Fritjof Capra. Both these books, at end of the read, gave me a “we are part of some thing big” feeling.
And my third question is left unanswered in this book, but the author raised similar traits in the following lines.
“… we will see that it (scientific method) is quite limited concerning the kinds of questions it can answer. Science is not only valuable line of inquiry into reality, despite what some scientists like to claim.”
